


put your records on.

by porcelainsimplicity



Series: stereo hearts. [1]
Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - America, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Records Shop, Short One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-07
Updated: 2018-10-07
Packaged: 2019-07-27 20:58:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,929
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16227209
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/porcelainsimplicity/pseuds/porcelainsimplicity
Summary: put your records on, tell me your favorite song.or: Rey works in a records shop and Ben is looking for a particular LP.





	put your records on.

**Author's Note:**

> hello awesome nerds. haven't written these two in awhile so this little universe came to be. this is the first part of the series; there will be more soon. enjoy!

Rey walked down the street until she arrived at the record shop, quickly unlocking the door and letting herself inside. She turned the open sign on as she walked past the windows, tossed her leather jacket onto a chair behind the counter, and made her way over to the record player. She was humming a few bars of _Layla_ to herself while thumbing through the records, and before she even realized it, she'd chosen the Derek and the Dominos album and was hearing the song instead of humming it. She walked around the store and flipped all of the lights on, then ducked into the back room to see if the latest shipment had arrived the night before while Poe and Finn were working.

When she walked back into the front of the store, box in hand, there was a man browsing through the stock in the fifties section, and all Rey could see was luscious long locks and the hint of skin stretched over tight sinew through a t-shirt that was entirely too tight and entirely too faded to be worn in public. She set the box down on the counter and the man turned around, and Rey found herself smiling at the man, whose face was just silly enough and just gorgeous enough to match the impression Rey already had about him.

The man turned back to the records and Rey turned her attention to the box, pulling out records and arranging them into piles on the counter according to the crazy genre system that Finn had thought up. When the box was empty, she picked up the first of the piles and made her way over to the Danish death metal section and started fitting them in alphabetically, her eyes casually glancing over at the man who was looking more gorgeous the more Rey looked at him. She filed away the last album in that particular pile and looked up at the man again, only this time she caught the man looking back at her. The man turned away quickly, and Rey filed that piece of information away in the back of her mind as she walked back to the counter and got more records.

She worked in silence as the man browsed in silence, and Rey couldn't help herself from noting that the number of records in the man's arms kept growing. If she got nothing else out of this, she was going to get a nice commission off the sale, and Finn was going to be happy because it had been awhile since Rey had managed a big sale, and Rey wasn't even having to do anything to get it. Brilliant start to the day.

She saved the records that needed to be put into their place in the fifties section for last, and she made her way over towards where the man was standing. She started towards the lower end of the alphabet since the man was around the upper, and she paid so much attention to the fact that the man was thumbing through Elvis records that she nearly filed a Bing Crosby with the W's. Slowly she moved closer to the man until they were standing right next to each other, and Rey was finding it incredibly hard to concentrate, which really meant that she needed to hit up a club and get herself laid so that she didn't act like a fucking teenager whenever a good looking guy happened to walk into the shop.

“Hey, do you have _Elvis_?” the man asked suddenly. “It's the only one of Elvis's albums that I don't have on vinyl, and I've been looking for it everywhere.”

“Is it not there?” Rey asked, leaning closer to the man and reaching in front of him to thumb through the section. “'Cause if it's not there, then we don't have it.”

“Dammit,” the man said, the smile slipping from his face. “I was really hoping that you would say you did.”

“Sorry,” Rey offered up, moving around the man to his other side and continuing to file the records she was holding. “Do you mean the one called _Elvis_ or the one called _Elvis Presley_? Sometimes people get confused and think they're the same, or say one when they mean the other.”

“No, it's definitely the one that's just called _Elvis_. I've got the _Elvis Presley_ one at home.” The man sighed. “Oh well, I'll just have to keep looking.”

The man walked away from Rey then, and Rey quickly finished filing away the rest of the records before walking back to the counter and getting the register set up. By the time she was finished, the man was walking towards her with a stack of records, and Rey was disappointed that the man was getting ready to leave.

And then something occurred to her and a bright smile crossed her face.

She rung the records that the man set on the counter up then took the receipt and wrote her address on the back of it. “Come to that address any time after six tonight, and I'll have your record for you.”

The man looked at the address as Rey slid the receipt across the counter at him, then up at Rey in surprise. “What?”

“I kicked a boyfriend out about four months ago, and he never came and got his shit, and he's got a great record collection, and well, I know that _Elvis_ is among it. You can have it, or any of the others if you want them if you just stop by and get it.”

And then the smile was back on the man's face, and he carefully folded the receipt and put it in his wallet. “Seriously?”

“Seriously.”

“That's...that's amazing. I'll definitely be there, but probably not till after eight. I've got to get off work and then find my way there.”

“Not a problem,” Rey said, smiling at him as the man took the bag full of records off the counter. “I'll be waiting.”

*****

And waiting she was, from six even though the man had said he'd be past eight when the man finally showed up at half past nine.

“Sorry,” the man said, smiling apologetically. “I got held up at work.”

“Not a problem,” Rey said, ushering the man in and then leading him the short distance to her living room. “Anything in those boxes that you want, it's yours.”

“I'm Ben, by the way,” the man said as he walked towards the table where the box sat.

“Rey,” she responded, sitting down on the sofa and watching as Ben crouched down next to the table. “So you're a big Elvis fan, huh?”

“Yeah,” Ben said, opening up a box and reaching inside. “It sounds silly, but his music reminds me of home.”

“I don't think that's silly at all,” Rey said, offering up a smile when Ben looked her way. “There's lots of music that makes me think of home too.”

That launched them into a discussion of where they were from and how they had ended up in New York, and what music it was that Rey related back to home. Ben confessed to being a big Kinks fan as well when he came across one of their records in the box, and that sent the conversation into the direction of music in general.

“Are you sure you don't want these?” Ben asked as he set another record in the pile he wanted to take home with him.

“I've already gone through them and taken the ones I want,” Rey said. “The rest are either duplicates or ones I'm not interested in. I was planning on selling them to the shop for some extra money, but like I said, take whatever you want.”

Ben thumbed through a few more records before sighing. “I can't believe someone would just leave this many records behind.”

“Yeah, well, I think he knows better than to ever show his face around here again,” Rey said, unable to keep the bitterness from creeping into her voice. “Motherfucker.”

“That bad?”

“Yeah.”

“His loss.”

“You think?”

“Yeah,” Ben said, looking in Rey's direction. “You seem like a really nice girl, especially doing this for me. You don't even know me.”

“Don't have to know someone to do something nice for them,” Rey pointed out. “Besides, I like to do nice things for people. It's one way to keep me from becoming a complete and total asshole.”

When Ben was done going through all the records, he moved over to the sofa and sat down next to Rey. “I really appreciate this, Rey. But what do you want for them?”

“I don't want anything for them.”

“Come on, you can't just let me walk out of here with about fifty records and not pay you anything for them,” Ben said, reaching into his pocket and pulling out his wallet. “I'm not sure how much money I've got, but...”

“But nothing. I'm serious, Ben, they're yours. I don't want any money.”

Ben stared at Rey for a moment before leaning forward and kissing her softly. “Can I perhaps offer up something else then?”

Rey knew the proper thing to do was to turn Ben down because it wasn't right to fuck a stranger over a bunch of records. But she'd wanted Ben practically since the first moment she saw him, and she hadn't had sex in so long, and damn, the kiss had felt nice. So she shifted closer to Ben and brought their lips together again, and it was like opening floodgates that Rey hadn't realized were closed. They somehow made their way from the living room to Rey's bedroom, leaving a trail of clothes in their wake. And then she shoved Ben down onto the bed, and crawled on top of him, and just let herself feel for awhile.

*****

The sun was just starting to come up when Rey woke, her head pillowed on an unfamiliar chest. It took her a moment to remember the night before, and that the unfamiliar chest belonged to Ben. Ben, who loved records and Elvis and had willingly fallen into bed with Rey just a few hours before. And it made Rey smile to know that Ben was still there when he could have easily slipped out once Rey was asleep.

“Morning,” Ben mumbled, shifting around until he was looking at Rey. “You got any coffee?”

“I've got loads of coffee,” Rey said, reaching out and threading her fingers through those long locks. “Just don't expect me to get up and make any for awhile.”

“I, um,” Ben started, then coughed and let his cheeks turn slightly red. “I'm sorry if I was a bit forward last night. Trading sex for records was probably not the smartest of ideas, but you'd been in my head all day, and...”

Rey brought a finger up to Ben's lips and pressed it against them. “It's okay, Ben. Sometimes I like my guys a bit forward. And I'd much rather have swapped sex for those records than money, and you'd been in my head all day too.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

*****

The stack of records that Ben had set aside never made it out of Rey's apartment. Instead, Ben came over after work to listen to them, one by one, then fell into bed with Rey after the end of the LP. With every evening that Ben was there, Rey fell a little bit more in love with the music, and they fell a little bit more in love with each other. 


End file.
